Tag: literary

Janann Dawkins Chalk clouds scrawl the starlit black, the dust of heat and space, the galaxies puffed into clusters. Relation: Earth is a pencil head, nub of meaning, less than the grain that orbits it. A meteor, graver than its neighbors, swerves: it means to pock, it moves unanswered. Apocalyptic sandstorms skirt the cirrus;…

Janann Dawkins The chlorophyll remains in leaf: the limbs retain their hair: the trees do not believe the sun will set on them. They think the film of heat is normal—that it will revive their energies. Their organelles deceive them. Arctic air is coming: the frigid winds decelerate, creep at angles, cleave the weeks—abnormal…

J. Michael Martinez after “The Movement of the Universe” c. 1450-1500 Flemish, possibly Tournai tapestry 415 x 800 (163 3/8 x 315) Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo “Thus adorned with the fixed stars the sky revolves under the pole both through the region of the North Wind and the South Wind; according to their…

Killarney Clary Given away. This is the end of the longest night. We are never certain; often the darkness is all of all of us, but here is the loose end of a spiral we hadn’t even noticed. I will believe what I see until, between the shadows, the circles turn to crescents, or…

Killarney Clary She’s worried about the roll of the boat. He will sit wherever she wants, asks her if she’d like to lie down. She lays her head against her sweater on his lap and they both close their eyes, a few of his fingers tucked under her upper arm, his other hand ordinary…

Killarney Clary I list in my mind what I have left to do. I don’t need to do anything. I am this close to the heart of my life. Nothing left to buy; I’ve written a last postcard. “Let me come inside,” I plead. Inside what, and who’s to answer? What remains is my…

Table of Contents Tom Raworth, from Silent Rows Laynie Browne, from Rebecca Letters Sarah Bloom, “Catherine to her demon” Elaine Equi, “Another Wall to Walk Through” “Shield” Nathaniel Mackey, from Song of the Andoumboulou Killarney Clary, “Given away” “She’s worried about the roll of the boat” “I list in my mind what I have left…

Killarney Clary Maybe they’re all singing to themselves, alone in malls, against foot traffic on sidewalks. A small dark boy kneeling, rubs the chest of a limp man in the parking lot of the 7-eleven; he’s done this before. I can feel the inside of my skin. Don’t Walk/Walk. I am a package that moves…

Marc McKee Standing in the middle of a land this vast you can nearly apprehend the curvature of the earth. Every weight seems connected, each measure inept. Venus tonight brighter than the stars over this ex-plantation house, one pillar an inch off the ground,…